Cupcake Saturday!

Welcome to another Cupcake Saturday! The week seems to go by pretty fast, and before you know it, it’s Saturday again. I guess it’s a good thing we have a ton of recipes to try… Before we get to that, here is a picture of tonight’s dinner- spaghetti and meatballs! Robyn made the meatballs and they look delicious!

April Fool’s!! (Har-har…hilarious, I know…) It’s actually a cupcake! Well, 4, but still... It’s a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting, piped to look like spaghetti. The meatballs come from a crumbled cupcake. No pasta dish is complete without sauce, which is just a little bit of strawberry jam. And, in our opinion, the cheese makes the meal, which is just some grated white chocolate! Talk about carbo-loading! Have a great day and don’t play too many tricks tomorrow!!

Beautifying the Bathroom

It’s a rainy day here. I know what you’re all thinking, “Of course it is. It’s Washington.” And I’d have to agree, but it hasn’t been this bad yet. We had a week of gorgeous weather- we were able to see Mount Rainier and the Cascades all week! It was pretty windy last night and this morning. It’s supposed to clear up a little later, so we’ll see. Anyway, here is another home décor project Robyn worked on. It’s her bathroom. It started off with just the shower curtain and blue sink accessories. The shower curtain is just a $5.00 bed sheet with holes punched on the top for the rings. (Thanks Mom, for that tip!) Imagine how easy it will be to update later on! Anyway, to match the polka dots on the curtain, Robyn added some dots to everything else in the bathroom. She cut circles out of different blue vinyl. The mirror by itself is less than desirable, so the dots add a nice touch! Her towels are blue, too, well, will be!

Apartment Decor

It has been two weeks since we moved into our little apartment. It’s still pretty bare, but we are slowly adding our own personal touches to it. The first picture is of our living room. Not much in here, but that’s our “couch” off to the left. And our coffee tables provide excellent storage space and “office”! The collage adds some color to the wall.

 These next two pictures are of our dining area. The wall art was posted a few days ago. Still looking for suggestions on embellishing it! Anyway, Robyn was being crafty in here. She made the table runner, along with the white slipcovers for the chairs. They’re pretty neat because she made them so the bows can be changed, depending on the season. Now she only has to make matching table runners for all the other seasons! The other is another view, with our mantel and fireplace. And the first piece of fine art we hung up! Sarah made it for us and we love it! It’s such a cute piece! We love the button projects ;) And, we can see another view of Robyn’s sewing projects.

We have taken a few pictures of the kitchen, but it needs some art work. It’s not complete yet, so we’ll post those once we add our own touch to it! And once the other rooms start coming together, we’ll post those, too!

Back to Card Making!

We’ve made a few cards since getting here, but it seems to be getting back to “normal” (Not sure if that makes sense…) Anyway, we were looking in some of our magazines and I came across a scrapbook page that had something like this on it, and I really liked it. The colors and flower helped. I wanted to make a card based off of it and this is what I came up with:

The page had some journaling around the flower, so I changed it to say “Hello”. The hardest part was getting the computer to cooperate with me. After many tries, the flower finally fit in the center. I inked around the edges of the pieces, too. It’s a nice way to differentiate between all of the layers. The inside of the card was left blank, so it’s more of a note card. I love how bright and cheery it is!

Our Own Wall Art

Here is the first piece of art we made for the apartment. It’s just a quickie project, but it adds a lot to an otherwise bare wall. We made it ourselves, so it was a lot less expensive than the ones you buy at the store. It says, “Sit Long, Talk Much, Laugh Often”, all of which we do more than enough of!! And since we made it, we can personalize it. The only thing we’re not sure about is how to add to it. We think it needs something more, but we can’t figure out what it should be. We’re up for any suggestions!

Cupcake Saturday!

So, the weekend has come again and it’s time for another Cupcake Saturday. We were looking in our cabinets to see what we had already. There wasn’t much. Except peanut butter and chocolate! In our opinion, you can’t get much better than that! We decided on a chocolate cupcake, filled with a peanut butter mousse and peanut butter frosting. We also added a hard chocolate shell around the edges. Oh my goodness!! Probably the tastiest cupcakes we’ve made in a while!! They were so good! Now, one might think, “That’s a lot of peanut butter,” but is there really such a thing?! And they weren’t overpoweringly sweet either. Much more neighbor-friendly than last week’s green velvet…unless they’re all gone by the time you go to put them in a box…

We could only get a picture of the entire cupcake. The inside was gushing with peanut butter and just a little unphotogenic!! 

Don’t you wish you could just eat the computer?! Too bad they’re all gone…

Welcome Spring!

So, we're aware that we are a day early, but with the weather we've been having out here, it feels like what Spring should be! And, since we haven't had any snow this winter, it feels like it should have happened months ago. Granted, it probably feels more like summer now, at home. Anyway, in honor of the changing season, we made a banner to hang from our mantel. It adds a little brightness and cheer to, the otherwise bare, living room. Actually, the mantel is probably the cheeriest spot in the apartment so far! It's a little hard to see in the picture- the glare off the mirror doesn't help much. It says "Happy Spring". The second picture is of the spacer.

 This is the space between the two words. The little bunny was just too cute not to use! He, along with the letters, are 3D and pop out of the banner. Doesn't he look like he just belongs among the flowers?! And it may be a cloudy day, but there's no rain!

I know that  it looks more like an Easter banner, but that way it will be easier to change in a few weeks! Hope everyone has a great day and thanks for looking!

A Change of Address Card

As our small group of blog followers know, we just moved across the country. Well, that calls for a change of address card, of course! They're in the mail, as soon as we find the nearest Post Office. Looks like we'll have to make some new mailman friends out here... just not the same, though...
Here's a look at it:

And contrary to what you all might think, the sun DOES come out here!! If you look in the background, you can see blue skies AND some sun coming in to the left of the picture.  We were able to see Mt. Rainier in the distance today, which means it wasn't cloudy! Last summer when we were here, we drove up to the mountain and couldn't see it. Just wait till the summer when it's 95 at home and nice and comfortable here!!

Cupcake Saturday- Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Hey there. It's been a while. I think we missed 2 weekends of Cupcake Saturday, and boy am I bummed about it. However, no time like the present to start again! So in honor of St. Patrick's Day today, we had to search through all of our things to find the baking sheets, but we did!! We made some Green Velvet Cupcakes with an Irish Cream Cheese frosting. The picture looks really dark, but they really are green. Our chocolate to food coloring ratio was a little off. Too much chocolate (is there such a thing?!) and not quite enough food coloring. Oh well. They still taste delicious! We need to stop making so many, or run a whole lot more... Forgot that there isn't anyone else to share them with. I don't know if green food coloring overloaded cupcakes will go over so well with the neighbors. We'll have to freeze them and make them last a while, until next Saturday. We'll have to make some neighbor-friendly "normal" cupcakes. Start off slow so they aren't weirded out! :)

(One thing about not being at home, there aren't as many decor pieces to use for props...)

An Update of Our Adventures

OK, before we start, today's post is pretty long. So, as many of you know, we have finally moved out on our own!! Our journey started last Friday morning. After three hours of trying to play Tetris with all of our belongings, we got just about everything in the two cars. A few things did get left behind, unfortunately, but nothing we can't live without. Since the trip would take us through the mountains, we had to take a less-direct route. However, it was super easy. Other than side roads for gas and hotels, we were only on like 5 roads. Anyway, our first day took us from home all the way to Hubbard, Ohio, which is just over the Pennsylvania border. We pulled over a little early since there was a pretty bad rainstorm. Once we got to the hotel and settled down, though, the rain stopped... It was a nerve-racking night because it was the same night the tornadoes hit southern Ohio. Luckily, we were in northern Ohio.
The next day, we traveled through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. I think the worst part of the entire trip was the border between Indiana and Illinois. It went from a two-lane highway to a five-lane highway with only a few markers along the way. We tried to find rest areas along the way to meet up, but not too many states have Welcome Centers, which surprised us. We ended up meeting at the last Dunkin Donuts on I-80. It's a little sad that we have to wait till July for it again. It also started to snow a little, but it was blowing snow. It was kind of weird, though, because it wasn't like "regular" snow- it made the car dirty. I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain. At the end of the day, we crossed the Mississippi River and into the Central time zone in Iowa. We spent the night on the banks of the River and woke up to a very cold morning.
The third day of our trip took us across Iowa and through most of Nebraska. There's not much to do in either of those states. We drove through Omaha, which wasn't a very nice city. We stopped at a "Welcome Center", which was kind of sketchy. We did pass the stadium where they play the NCAA Men's World Series. Of all the places to have a tournament... We ended in North Platte, Nebraska. If you look at the town, or city, I guess, it doesn't look like there is anything to do. Surprisingly, though, there is a lot more to the city than what we saw. I guess that is how all the cities are there.
Monday took us from Nebraska to Ogden, Utah. This was the longest day of the trip so far. That is all the way through Wyoming and just into Utah. The cheapest gas we found was $3.05 at the first exit in Wyoming. There's also not much to see on the road through Wyoming, except for the mountain peaks, which was exciting to see. There were signs along the way for Yellowstone and Grand Teton, which were kind of like, "Oh, been there, done that..." Apparently there was an avalanche in Grand Teton this week. Luckily, we didn't have to drive through any snow there. Just around rush hour, we crossed the border into Utah. The first rest stop we got to was in Echo. It was an amazing stop!! We do have some pictures that we'll post. We stopped in Ogden, which is a ski town built in the side of the mountain. The view was just absolutely gorgeous! We went to bed as soon as we got into the room. The time changes were very screwy.
Tuesday was another long day. We got up early because we were having trouble sleeping. After breakfast (of dry Cheerios and oatmeal- yum...) we were on the road again. The sun was rising behind us and we were able to see an inlet of the Salt Lake. We decided that we have to go back one day and see it in all of its glory. We weren't in Utah for too long and entered Idaho. That was a tough state. There is even less to do here than in other states. We even made it to a gas station welcoming us to "the middle of nowhere"! The gas was $4.36 a gallon, the station had baby rattlesnakes on display, and two alpacas in front of the store. They were super cute, but didn't get to ride them... The only problem was that the kid working (who was probably 15) called me ma'am. We got out of there as soon as possible and continued to drive on. We hit a snow squall which proved that our windshield wipers should probably be changed... We drove through Boise, but didn't see much of it. At about 1:00 (after all the time time changes, we couldn't be too sure) we made it into Oregon. We were worried because we had to drive through the Cascades and apparently Oregon requires travelers to carry chains or traction tires during the winter. We were afraid that we were going to have to turn around or something, but luckily there was no snow on the ground anywhere. Interesting tid-bit, we did see the Ore-Ida potato company, which is in Ontario, Oregon, right on the Idaho border. (That's how they got their name...) We drove through Northeastern Oregon, which is pretty desolate. Not too much going on there. We drove along the Columbia River, which took most of the early evening hours. It was neat to see the places we went to last summer, but it was pretty dark out, so we couldn't see much, anyway. We stopped in a town called Troutdale for the night. It's about 20-30 minutes outside of Portland, but figured it would be better to stay out of the city. I went to get dinner at the Subway next door to the hotel and it took 20 minutes just to get there. The roads were one way, I kept getting into the wrong lane, and the GPS took me to the wrong stop. When I did finally get there, it took another trip around the block to get to the hotel because I missed the driveway. It was not a very fun trip...
The next day would be our last travel day. It is only two hours from Portland to Olympia, so we decided to take the long way. After getting a little lost, we drove out to Astoria, Oregon. We were out there over the summer and they have a bridge connecting Oregon and Washington. The directions were not the most concise, and it probably wasn't the quickest, either. We drove over the bridge, into Washington, which, in our opinion, is much better than the other way. You can see out into the water more. It's also a much easier way to cross the River, instead of having to caulk the wagon and ford it. We chose to go the long way, on Highway 101, which might have been a mistake. The first ten miles go along the Pacific Ocean, but eventually you go inland, so you don't get to see as much. At around 3:00, we made it to Olympia. We ended up separated from each other, and made it to one of the 10 Starbucks in town and spent some time there. After a little bit, we found a hotel and then did some more driving around town. It was a little overwhelming, at first, because there is so much more here than at home.
Yesterday and today saw us looking for apartments. The two that we looked at are in Tumwater, which is just outside of Olympia. It is a smaller town, which is nice because it's quieter. We finally decided on a 2bed, 2 bath apartment and, as long as everything goes well, we can move in on Monday!! We have to spend some more nights in the hotel, which doesn't make us very happy, but we can deal with it. We can't wait to start adding our own touch to the place and cook dinner!! We went to one of the local parks and hung out a little. The weather was absolutely amazing Wednesday and Thursday. It was sunny and around 60 degrees. We could see Mount Rainier, too, which was something we didn't see in the summer. Today was chillier, about 50 degrees and some showers. Nothing to complain about!!
Here are some pictures that we took along the way.

This is the view from our hotel looking out over the Mississippi River in Iowa.

 

A (blurry) welcome to Wyoming sign

 

Mountains in Wyoming

 Rest stop in Echo, Utah

Alpacas at the gas station in the "Middle of Nowhere"

Fields in Idaho

 

The Astoria-Megler Bridge, spanning the Columbia River and connecting Oregon to Washington

 

The view from the Washington rest stop, across the bridge. That little white mound is Mt. St. Helen's, and if you look real close, Mt. Rainier is behind it.

 

Our cars, happy to finally be in Washington! Now, they just need a bath...

Hopefully, we'll be all settled and back to our crafts and cupcakes!